Petition to bring back the DDF/DDA and get back on track.
- Thread starter Sanderson
- Start date
To quote myself when a similar question was asked earlier in this thread:
On the contrary, it is people who express sentiments like this who have no idea how software development actually works. It isn't about "design by committee" or being "dictated to". Modern software development techniques put the customer at the CENTRE of the design process. All features have to have a business case, they have to satisfy a well understood customer requirement. It isn't about creating things you think people should want or need. It is about listening to what the real customers actually want and need. It is ruthlessly pragmatic and requires one to put one's ego aside. It doesn't matter what you, as the developer, think. What matters is what your customers think. A "user lead want-fest" is a goldmine for any sensible software development team. Expectations always have to be managed, that goes without saying, but polling your actual customers when you're considering new features is just common sense.
That said, I didn't participate in the DDF, so I don't know how successful it was. As others have said, there are two discussions going on here. One is about recommissioning the DDF as a place where proposed new features can be run by the player-base. The other is about the implementation of features in the DDA, which were features FD themselves signed off on. They weren't just dictated by players, they were produced via a process of FD putting their ideas for features to players, then listening to some feedback. The question for me is why go through all that effort, effectively focus group testing, just to invest your development effort on something completely different after the fact?
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+1. Hell yeah. Its interesting HOW good this ideas are. Most of the new threads bringing up ideas for new features are either ideas that have already brought up in the DDF or the DDF goes much further than that.
Too bad, that we don't have seen too much of the ideas realized because most of them would make elite really a unique game. Up to now - beside multiplayer - they have only reached the amount of features of elite 2.
Too bad, that we don't have seen too much of the ideas realized because most of them would make elite really a unique game. Up to now - beside multiplayer - they have only reached the amount of features of elite 2.
There doesn't seem anything on that list that couldn't be added or isn't partially added already e.g. Faction Leaders (Tier 1 characters).
Just so, from that point of view there isn't anything at all that couldn't be added to Elite at some point, including the USS Enterprise and a Death Star.
Point being made is that a lot of that stuff isn't in the game at the moment, and we have no idea if it is ever coming. A lot of people are willing to wait, many other people however are not so happy about the lack of communication from Frontier.
Just so, from that point of view there isn't anything at all that couldn't be added to Elite at some point, including the USS Enterprise and a Death Star.
Well, strictly speaking, yes. But unlike the Enterprise and Death Star, the framework is in for the ideas listed above.
Then this thread is meaningless. Without information on what is planned to go into the game and when...or the reasons behind why something isn't going into the game it's pointless discussing getting back on track. We may very well be on track, we're just not there yet.
Lack of communication is a valid gripe but there's little we can do over that either.
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That feeling of meaningless is what prompted the thread to be created. Sanderson, (like most of us) has no idea what is planned for Elite or where it is heading, hence he created a thread to discuss that unknown element.
So yes I agree with you, there is no meaning to this thread until Frontier give us context. Meanwhile we are just left guessing and debating. Maybe the game is on track and just not there yet. But maybe it isn't. Who knows...
To be honest, I am totally willing to wait. I'd even rather wait longer for, for example, passenger missions to see them realized to their full potential (including NPC comms, contacts and persistent NPCs) than get them with the very limited features we have now.
Point is, I want to know if I am waiting in vain or if stuff like persistent NPC will indeed come eventually (no date needed!)
I don't want to know WHEN Tier 2 NPCs come, I just want to know IF they come at all.
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Not only that. Let's not forget jamming the communications, a shroud of mystery about background simulation cleverly conceiled inside a black box and then: surprise, surprise. We have sudden community goals, (called: community goals, lol), the all-new shiny iPowerplay and CQC with 6 months exclusivity gifted to microsoft. It isn't difficult to spot the subtle change in direction and the cause behind it. They wanted a single player game with multiplayer elements initially, later the concept changed dramatically - to a multiplayer game with single player elements. FD decided the latter option is more desirable, hence, good chunks of the initial data became obsolete.
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I felt that, as you say, something fundamental changed pre gamma it felt that something had gone wrong. Around the time that 'offline' was cancelled', a thought popped into my head that they had coded themselves into a corner and either the background sim wouldn't work without dev direct control and worse to implement mechanics that needed linking to it would just not work without such input. Doing what they are doing makes financial sense as it is relatively easy to tack on 'meta' content as it requires less integration and it is easier to manage post update.
While I would like to see more from the DDF I feel something else is absent and always has been, fiction. DB seems to be all about the science and the devs, while undoubtedly excellent devs, are orientated towards the technical. What is missing for me is the fiction, the imagination, the bizarre stuff 'science fiction' is filled with. The Thargoids would come into this category but my perception of the FD mindset is that even they will be reduced to an instanced bolt on that effects nothing unless you choose to take part...in short I find the game fantastic but, outside of the science, dull as a wet weekend in Bognor.
I want to be wrong, but I feel while some of what is in the DDF will be implemented, the game will never be an integrated rpg with consequences beyond the individual gamers experience. ED is and will possibly always be a this
A compendium of fun games wrapped in a colourful box
I have had my monies worth time wise, so no complaints on that side, just have a feeling of disappointment which may well be just my problem...
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![[VR] Mad Mike](https://forums-cdn.zaonce.net/data/avatars/m/27/27910.jpg?1553527108){kind=avatar}
Hi
it is nice to see someone with some insight post, however maybe this is just a miss communication and I am reading too much into it, however, this to me sounds liked past tense..... Does this mean FD HAVE pretty much given up on the DDF/DDA now (up until now I have been just hoping it is for the large part delayed as opposed to dropped completely).
(sorry just trying to get some expectation management in my head
)Many of the aspects still lacking from the game are what is needed to give it the depth to keep this game going.
Progression in pirating and smuggling careers by secret pirate and smuggling bases (in the DDF) and persistent NPCS would add a great deal of depth.
Progression in pirating and smuggling careers by secret pirate and smuggling bases (in the DDF) and persistent NPCS would add a great deal of depth.
Not everything that came out of the DDF (and now is in the DDA) was fantastic and HAD to be in ED, but even just reading a few of the threads you can see that many of the problems currently in the game were all threashed out in the DDF, and mostly had really good solutions to those problems.
Design by commitee is not perfect, but don't be fooled into thinking many computer games are not created without the input of the whole dev team, so this extension to paid members is not that unusual a model for game dev.
Design by commitee is not perfect, but don't be fooled into thinking many computer games are not created without the input of the whole dev team, so this extension to paid members is not that unusual a model for game dev.
Hi
it is nice to see someone with some insight post, however maybe this is just a miss communication and I am reading too much into it, however, this to me sounds liked past tense..... Does this mean FD HAVE pretty much given up on the DDF/DDA now (up until now I have been just hoping it is for the large part delayed as opposed to dropped completely).
(sorry just trying to get some expectation management in my head
What insight is this that you speak of?
He's just a moderator that has been on a few jollies with the dev's he doesn't speak for them. FD in my experience speak for themselves when they want to.
So what are they saying on this subject? Nothing...nothing at all. Which ultimately says it all on this sad state of affairs where people paid money based on a vision and while the vision can shift left or right it shouldn't be something completely unrepresentative of the vision 6 months after release.
^ I think this hits the nail on the head.
As several posters have commented, it's the lack of a roadmap communicated by the developers that frustrates. Combined with new 'features' that no one expected or wanted (PP, CQ) raises the worry that things that people really do want (landings, ship interiors, etc) may never materialise.
+1 for bringing back DDF/DDA.
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The direction Elite is heading is utter gash, i won't even comment on PP as other posters have been far more eloquent then i could be in the description of its horror.
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The direction Elite is heading is utter gash, i won't even comment on PP as other posters have been far more eloquent then i could be in the description of its horror.
In other words: a shift to focus on a different sort of customer. Indeed, a plausible explanation. I'm sort of on the fence regarding this though. Without meaning to sound unfairly critical, I'm not sure there is a variety of customer out there for whom PP is a killer app. Is there a sort of customer who likes grinding? I know there are PvP elements, so in that respect it has an almost planetside feel, but so long as there is such a thing as Solo mode, people who would have played PP for the competitive aspects between powers will end up feeling short-changed and frustrated. In other words, their power can be beaten indirectly, by higher volumes of players working for opposing powers in Solo.
That said, I'm not averse to a PP style mechanic, even if it is never perfect for everyone. My main gripe with the PP update is that if it had come AFTER adding a load more content stuff, and more involved and detailed gameplay, then PP itself would have been much more interesting. Moreover, if it had been tied into the missions system, and if the missions themselves were more complex and entertaining...you get the idea.
